Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Thursday said Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should be impeached, even if he was joking about proposing to secretly record conversations with President Trump and invoking the 25th Amendment.
“It’s just an inappropriate thing to joke about – when you’re overseeing an investigation,” Gaetz told co-hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on Hill.TV’s “Rising.”
“When you’re with your colleagues and subordinates you don’t joke about destabilizing the institution of the presidency,” he added.
Gaetz, a top Trump ally on Capitol Hill, and other House conservatives have seized on a recent New York Times article that said Rosenstein last year suggested wearing a wire during conversations with Trump, and that he proposed recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25 Amendment to remove the president from office.
Rosenstein, who has denied the Times report, is responsible for overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
Gaetz is also among the GOP lawmakers who want to declassify documents related to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump last week ordered the DOJ to declassify a number of highly sensitive documents related to the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, but later delayed their release after he said “key allies” raised concerns.
Gaetz on Thursday emphasized his support for Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, saying the official has remained fair in his oversight of investigators throughout the politically charged probe.
“I think the president has a lot of confidence in inspector general Michael Horowitz, as do I,” Gaetz said. “He is an Obama appointee, he’s a Democrat, but everything we’ve seen from the inspector general has been right down the middle, up-and-up — no politics, no conjecture just laying before the Congress what has happened.”
“And I think as we see that in the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] process, they’ll be some people will have a lot to answer for,” he added.
— Tess Bonn
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